According to a new cost-comparison map from Castlight Health shows the variation in medical prices across the U.S. It uses the price of four different services: a lipid panel, a CT scan (of head/brain), an MRI (of lower back), and an adult preventive primary care visit. Prices are defined as the employee cost-sharing plus the amount paid by the consumer.

Deputy Health Minister Peter Vaughan said the technology will not be available to doctors anytime soon.

He said it could cost the province up to $10,000 per year per user.

“That's a pretty significant cost when you add up the 2,500 physicians in the province and it's not something that we would again prioritize at this stage,” he said.

Recapping H1N1 in 2009

A new map shows the path of H1N1 "swine flu" as it spread across the United States in the fall of 2009. The "fall wave" of H1N1 began in Georgia and Alabama, and radiated outwards across the country. The map can be found at PLOS Computational Biology.

Mapping Local Air Pollution Better than the EPA

Biotech firm PerkinElmer, has launched a new map to track pollution data more closely than governments all over the world. The map is a tool to prompt local governments (and commercial businesses) to track pollution and put it on the map. It's a good way to sell sensors and perhaps encourage citizen science. But as Fast Companypoints out, there's not information on the pollution's source, just that it's there. The pilot is here in Boston.

The southwest has the highest proportion of third graders who have had some form of tooth decay, with 75% of Arizona third graders, 73% of Texas third graders, and 71% of California third graders having tooth decay experience.

There is a weak, but existing, relationship between water fluoridation and tooth decay.